The field of the invention is systems and methods for producing lower noise medical images. More particularly, the invention relates to systems and methods for denoising medical images by enforcing low rank in spatial-temporal or spatial-spectral image matrices.
Medical images typically contain an appreciable amount of image noise. In x-ray imaging systems, the amount of noise in an acquired image is related to the x-ray dose used to obtain that image. As the x-ray dose is lowered, the amount of noise in the resultant image increases. Other sources of imaging noise include uncertainties in the acquired data from the medical imaging system, which may be an x-ray imaging system (e.g., a computed tomography system, a C-arm system), an ultrasound system, a magnetic resonance imaging (“MRI”) system, and the like.
Although techniques for denoising medical images exist, the currently available techniques often require a trade-off in spatial resolution in the images. Thus, there remains a need for systems and methods for denoising medical images that reduce the noise in the images without decreasing the spatial resolution of the images.